One of Canada's long-lasting bands, Annihilator, are back approximately a year later with a new CD and a new singer.

Their last CD, Criteria For A Black Widow, was the first to reunite the band with vocalist Randy Rampage who was with the band for their legendary album Alice In Hell. Unfortunately, that reunion was short lived and ill-fated. Maybe it's for the best, because now Annihilator has Joe Comeau (ex-Overkill guitar) on lead vocals!! Joe's vocal style is more varied than Randy's. The last time I heard Joe sing was on the Liege Lord CD's and for those who've heard that, his vocal style is not the same as it was back then. In fact, he has improved quite a bit. He can sing the heavy parts with as much aggression as Randy and he also can do the melodic singing. Musically Carnival Diablos is a mixed album. There are songs on here that are as heavy as anything that they've done and then there are hard rock songs that have a big AC/DC influence. It's only personal taste, but I prefer the heavier thrash songs of Annihilator.

The CD opens on a high point with Denied which has lots of choppy sounding, thrashy riffing. Second on the CD is The Perfect Virus. The first half of this song is unexciting, but then it slams in and becomes something entirely different. Track three, Battered, now that's more like it!! This is a pure thrash attack. Killer riffing! Apparently this song is nod to Metallica's Battery. Well I don't hear much of it in here. This sounds like a classic Annihilator thrasher to me. The album's title track, Carnival Diablos, begins with Joe doing some clean singing (or is that Jeff Waters doing the clean parts?). This sounds more like hard rock. It's an OK song, but it's kinda strange that they picked one of the weaker tracks for the title track. I know Jeff Waters is a big AC/DC fan, they've covered them live on many occasions. However, I never expected them to write a song that sounded just like an AC/DC song. Shallow Grave is TOTALY AC/DC. The yeaahhh that kicks the song off sounds like Brian Johnson. The riff is like AC/DC as well. That means this is very simple, hard rock, and repetitive. It's a good song, but not what I usually listen to and not what I expect (and want) from Annihilator.

The bottom line with Carnival Diablos is that this is not quite as overall godly like Criteria For A Black Widow was. This album is more diverse, Joe is technically a better singer, so it's not him holding anything back. The songs on here are more diversified.